208 



HEALTH AND DISEASE 



of physic and light diet should be promptly adopted as preliminaries to 

 more active treatment. After the effects of the medicine have passed 

 away the leg should be irrigated with cold water for half an hour three 

 times a day, and in the intervals a cold wet bandage should be applied 

 to the affected limb. Should the lameness continue after four or five 

 days, a blister may be applied to the inner and outer side of the leg 

 between the knee and the fetlock, and repeated once or oftener according 

 to the requirements of the case. Should this not succeed, it may be 

 necessary to puncture the splint with the pointed iron, or to insert a seton 

 over it, or, as a last resort, to cut through the covering of the bone 

 (periosteotomy). It need hardly be said that the operations last referred 

 to can only be undertaken safely by the qualified veterinarian. 



OSTITIS— INFLAMMATION OF BONE 



A casual inspection of a bone shows it to consist of several structures. 

 Outwardly will be noticed a thin fibrous membrane (periosteum). This 

 not only covers the exterior of the bone, but serves as a bed in which 

 blood-vessels break up into small branches before entering it through the 



minute openings provided 

 on the surface. With these 

 small vessels fine fibres from 

 the periosteum itself also pass 

 into the tissue of the bone, 

 and become connected with 

 another membrane lining it 

 within termed the endosteum. 

 The several structures- 

 may separately suffer from 

 infiammation, 1)ut the in- 

 timate connection existing- 

 between them renders it im- 

 possible for one to suffer with- 

 out the others beina; soon 

 involved in the disease. 

 Inflammation occurring in the periosteum is known as 'periostitis, in 

 the bone as ostitis, and in the lining membrane of the bone as endostitis. 



Periostitis. — This disease is mostly found to exist in the long bones 

 of the limbs of young animals when growth of the skeleton is most active, 

 and the vessels of the membrane are highly charged with blood for the 

 supply of its nutritive requirements. 



Fig. 316. — Uiagrammatic Transverse Section of Tibia and Fibula 



A, The two layers of the periosteum with blood-vessels, &c. 

 B, Bone of the Tibia, c, Bone of the Fibula. D, Endosteum. 

 E, Marrow. 



